


If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you;

by WhyWhyNot



Series: Three Wise Monkeys [21]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Attempted Sexual Assault, Blood, Body Horror, Claustrophobia, Disfigurement, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kidnapping, Revenge, Self-Harm, Torture, Trauma, implied/referenced solitary confinement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2020-01-13 06:13:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18463139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyWhyNot/pseuds/WhyWhyNot
Summary: The embarrassing part is, it happens in broad day light, on his place of work. The embarrassing part is, Matt doesn't even manage to put on a fight.





	1. Chapter 1

The embarrassing part is, it happens in broad day light, on his place of work. The embarrassing part is, Matt doesn't even manage to put on a fight. 

\---

Ronald Wilde has the slow heart of an athlete, an impressive built and a lingering smell of tobacco on his clothes. He comes into Matt's office, sits, and waits until Matt leans closer to ask him why he needs a lawyer to spray _something_ in his face.

After that, everything happens very fast. By the time Matt gets out of his chair, he is too dizzy to fight. By the time Wilde reaches him, Matt is unconscious. 

\---

Matt wakes up chained to a chair in a small basement.

(Matt can feel the walls around him, trapping him as surely as the bars of a cage.)

(Matt can feel his breath quicken, remember the hunger, the thirst, the smell of piss, of blood, of rotting corpses, the feel of his own shit drying on his skin.)

(Matt is starting to panic, _knows_ he is starting to panic, but can't quite find the strength to calm down.)

He tries to move his arms, to bring his palms to his face or his fists to the walls, but he is kept in place by handcuffs.

(He is kept in place by handcuffs.)

(There were no handcuffs in the cages. There were never any restraints in the cages.)

Matt tugs on the hancuffs until the sharp edges bit into his skin.

( There were never any restraints in the cages.)

Matt rubs his wrists against the metal until they bleed. 

(The cold bite of metal, the burning kiss of pain. Reminders. He isn't in the cages.)

He keeps doing it.

(Pain is better than mindless fear.)

\---

When Wilde comes back, everything in him screams _anticipation_ , and Matt relaxes a little. 

(It's not the first time Matt meets this kind of anticipation. The kind felt by men who enjoy others pain, when they're about to hurt someone.)

(The kind of anticipation that comes before torture or a hard fight.)

(It's almost comforting, in a way. Matt is used to withstand torture, used to fight he cannot win. He can take it.)

(He can take anything but sitting alone in a cage.)

Wilde kneels so his face is in front of Matt's.

(Matt can't be sure, but he thinks the man is smiling.)

\---

Wilde removes Matt's glasses. 

(How is he even still wearing them?)

His heart makes a familiar jump when he sees Matt's eyes. 

(The first time Matt heard that jump, it was at the orphanage, when a troup of bullies thought it would be fun to steal the blind kid's glasses.)

(The funny thing is, Before, Matt never wore glasses and no one ever reacted. Not Lola, not Dominique, not Father, not even the people in the cages. Matt's eyes were never relevant, then, save for the braille in his lessons.)

(At St Agnes, after the bullies stole his glasses, Matt asked Sister Maggie what his eyes looked like. She snapped back that vanity was a form of pride, and that pride was a sin. But Matt noticed the way she flinched, the way she used a lawyer of reprimand to hide her uneasiness.)

(The way Foggy used forced cheerfulness to hide _his_ uneasiness, the one time Matt was too slow to put his glasses back.)

(Matt was unconscious when Claire first saw his eyes, and she never said anything. Matt didn't ask.)

Wilde chuckles. 

" _Disgusting_. No wonder you have to wear these glasses. Honestly, I'm making you a favor."

There's something in his voice, some kind of cruel amusement, and Matt braces himself for the pain. 

"After all, _you're already blind_."

\---

The thing is, Matt _is_ blind. Really blind, actually blind, real-world blind and blind for real. The World on Fire is but synesthesia and echolocation and air currents like flames against his skin.

Matt is blind. But it doesn't mean he isn't _attached_ to his eyes. 

Matt is blind, but it doesn't hurt any less when Wilde slides something metallic behind his eye and _pulls_.

Matt is blind, but it doesn't feel any less wrong when his eye _pops_ out of its socket.

Matt is blind, but it doesn't dim the horror when Wilde starts on his second eye.

(And once the deed is done, Wilde leans against Matt, his body hot and heavy against his chest. His breath is burning on Matt's ear when he whispers _kingpin says hello_ , his fingers like iron brands when he goes to unbuckle their belts.)

(The _crack_ of his nose when Matt punches him straight in the face is _very_ satisfying.)

\---

The thing is, Matt deals with torture and maiming far better than with solitary confinement.

The thing is, when it became obvious that he would be tortured rather than left to rot, Matt relaxed enough to actually _think_ , and kept thinking despite the pain.

And once Matt wasn't actively staving off a panic attack, it was far, far easier to dislocate his thumb and slide a hand out of the shackles. And once the hand was out of the shackles, it was a child play to punch Wilde, and use the chains to choke him into unconsciousness. 

(And if Matt kicks him in the ribs while he's down, well, at least he didn't _kill_ the man.)

Matt's senses are haywire, and when he goes looking for the key of his restraints, he finds a little metal object on the floor. It's a spoon, sticky with blood, and _oh_.

 ** _Oh_**.

Matt finds the key in Wilde's pocket and his own phone on a table and walks on something small and round that breaks like an egg under his foot and he very carefully doesn't think _it's my eye I just walked on my own eye_.

It's terrifyingly easy to sound hurt and helpless for the police. 

(Matt isn't lying when he tells them the Devil saved him.)

 

\---

 

When Matt wakes up in the hospital, Claire is at his side, and her heart flutters in horror. 

(She's upset he lost his eyes.)

Matt puts on his face the more sincere-looking smile he can to reassure her.

"Don't worry, Claire, it's alright! After all, I was already blind!"


	2. Chapter 2

An Eye

**Author's Note:**

> Matt had cataract, because that's what happens when you're blinded by radioactivity, and facial scarring around the eyes, because that's what happens when you're blinded by chemical burns


End file.
